Repairing our international relationships

From The Times of London:

Europe’s disappointment with Barack Obama’s presidency is laid bare today as the EU’s most senior figure calls for a dramatic effort to revive transatlantic relations. The President of the European Commission told The Times that the new era at the White House was in danger of becoming a “missed opportunity” for Europe. José Manuel Barroso said that the EU-US relationship was not living up to its potential. The criticism follows a series of fundamental disagreements on how to deal with the economic crisis, climate change and trade reform.

It's like this. Socialism is a parasite which cannot survive without a capitalist host to feed upon.

Advocates of Obamacare and other socialized health care schemes like to point out that in the US around 40% of health care costs are already paid by the government through programs like Medicare. This is true but it ignores the fact that it is only possible to give quality medical care to the 40% because they ride on the back of the 60% which remains in the private sector.

The relationship between Western Europe and the United States is much like this. "Old" Europe can only survive if the US remains an economically and militarily strong superpower. European leaders know this even if the average European "man in the street" doesn't.

European leaders disliked George W Bush because he was unwilling to subordinate US interests to European sensibilities. At the end of the day he was going to do what he was going to do regardless of what Europe thought.

Europe's political class believed that Barack Obama would put the American attack dog back on its leash and not let it interfere with business as usual (remember that European politicians were getting millions in under the table payoffs from Saddam Hussein in exchange for subverting the UN sanctions). They also believed that he would keep the American workhorse in harness and pulling the wagon of American prosperity.

What Europe got in B. Hussein Obama was a lazy and childish "man" who believes that he has a birthright to be adored for just showing up and resents the idea that he might have to perform to any kind of external standard.

Eurocrats have gotten out of the habit of listening to their own populations. If they had been willing to listen to their own countrymen they might have forewarned about Obama. While European leaders know that their lotus eater societies require a strong and prosperous America to support them ordinary European people - who have been infantalized by two generations of post-war cradle-to-grave socialism - have no such knowledge.

Average Europeans were willing to cheer Obama to the echo because they sensed in him the same kind of smoldering anti-American resentment they feel themselves. In Obama they saw a man who shared their desire to see America brought down to the rest of the world's level.

European presidents and prime ministers can only watch in horror as Obama attempts to wring the neck of the goose that lays so many golden eggs and pray (there are no atheists in foxholes) that November of this year returns the US legislature to the control of adults who can at least mitigate the damage coming from America's first post-American unreconstructed campus Marxist practitioner of radical identity politics ever to sit in the Oval Office - or at least behind the desk in the Oval Office.

Oh, and Europe. . . In the future be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.